"Purple Rage"

This year's late-'90s alt-rock revival continues on with Toronto's Dilly Dally, a powerful, incandescent four-piece on the verge of releasing their debut, Sore. Their first single, "Desire", was an exercise in loud-quiet-loud restraint, and "Purple Rage" feels like the next logical step: After that initial burst of lust comes a hurricane of wild, confused emotions. Rage can be a beautiful thing, and Dilly Dally find theirs in guitarist/vocalist Katie Monks, who sings as if gargling a mouthful of kerosene at all times. Like Kurt Cobain at his snarliest or Frank Black at his most sardonic, "Purple Rage" is propelled by its singer's ability to translate angst into throat-shredding wails. Her voice is somehow guttural and nasal at once. When Monks bellows "You don't know me, man/ You try and stop me but I'm not dead," she sounds like a woman incapable of lying, and even more incapable of taking your bullshit.